L.B. Jeffries is the pseudonym of a law student from South Carolina. After majoring in English, L.B. wandered around the resort scene in California, taught a little creative writing in Vermont, and ended up dead broke on the lower east side of Manhattan. A year of working for the government convinced him that there are some things worse than death so he took the LSAT. He continues to maintain his sanity and artistic sensibilities by posting a weekly on the PopMatters blog, 'Moving Pixels', providing game reviews, and whatever else captures his fancy.

There’s still no video game quite like this, but that probably has more to do with the death of the arcade rather than with the nature of the game itself.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games, PC) [$19.95]

Conceptually the series was always a modernized take of the morality horror films of the '70s and '80s, modern in this case being a combination of the rhetoric of Fight Club alongside video game elements.

On paper, a simplified tactical RPG probably sounds like a good idea. Games like Pokemon have shown that the formula can deliver to younger audiences. The reason that Dawn of Heroes bombs is that it doesn’t really pay attention to what the player wants to do in this type of game.

L.B. Jeffries bids adieu to the Moving Pixels audience, but before he goes, he has a few words to share about writing game criticism, noting that "the difference between a critical analysis and a game FAQ is that somebody who has never played the game can still gain something from good analysis."

"If you grew up thinking that the stage/arena show is what live music is supposed to be, it’s jarring to be confronted with a band playing two feet in front of you, running into you, spitting in your face, hitting you with their instruments."

For longtime fans of horror games, Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a breath of fresh air in a genre that is now more about thrills than genuine fear.

When an author constructs an entire world, they tend to want to show it off as much as possible and provide explanations to game players. That's when games get stuck, especially if borrowing from sci-fi or fantasy literature.

It doesn’t matter what you try to force a space into being, people will define that space themselves in connection to other parts. A game designer never truly plays their own game.

What benefit is there to having terminal consequences in an adventure game? Adventure games always succumb to the issue of having an interface where you can theoretically do anything and having it confined to a space where you can only do what the designer allows.